Restructuring of SOEs centred
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-20 08:57

Speeding up the shareholding restructuring of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) remains the highlight in the second half year, according to an SOE work conference on Friday.

"Strategic investors are welcomed to push the restructuring or listing of SOEs' core business," said Li Rongrong, minister of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), the watchdog that acts as the State owner of central SOEs.

Meanwhile, SOEs should strive to introduce the board to further improve the corporate governance.

And the reshuffle and adjustment of SOEs will further move on.

"Our target is developing 80 to 100 enterprises with top-notch technology and competitiveness in the international market through the reshuffle," Li said.

The number of central SOEs has shrunk from 196 to 169 in the past two years.

In line with the economic globalisation, many SOEs had stepped up their expansion into the international market.

China Metallurgical Construction Group joined hands with China Minmentals Corp to export complete sets of metallurgy equipments valued US$236.5 million to South Africa, a breakthrough for China's metallurgy equipments export.

A subsidiary company of China Harbour Engineering Group signed a lift contract valued US$220 million with Rotterdam port, the largest contract in the industry.

SOEs reported a sharp profit growth in the first half-year, thanks to the sound national economic development and the deepening of shareholding restructuring.

Those flagships of their industries earned 298.8 billion yuan (US$37 billion) in profits in the first six months of 2005, a 29.1 per cent increase on a year-on-year basis.

The growth rate was 4.5 percentage points higher than sales income in the same period, which topped 3.1 trillion yuan (US$382 billion).

These enterprises also saw a 27.1 per cent jump in industrial output, which totalled 1.9 trillion yuan (US$234.5 billion) in the first half-year. And SOEs' investment on fixed assets maintained a steady growth, hitting 388.5 billion yuan (US$47.9 billion), 3.7 per cent lower than the social average.

But there are still problems, Li Rongrong said. A total of 106 SOEs saw a profit setback compared with the same period of last year, and part of them suffered from a soaring cost.

"Although the price hikes from energy and raw materials contributed to the jump of cost, lack of an efficient cost-controlling system and rapid increase of labour cost should never be neglected," an analyst with China Securities told China Daily.

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